


It's the thought that counts

by burkesl17



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Christmas, Humor, M/M, batfamily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-30
Updated: 2014-12-30
Packaged: 2018-03-04 08:29:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3049997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burkesl17/pseuds/burkesl17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grayson has told Damian he needs to give thoughtful gifts to the rest of the Batfamily at Christmas. Well, he's certainly thought about them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's the thought that counts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iamjasonssmirkingrevenge (mizzykitty)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizzykitty/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this iamjasonssmirkingrevenge, it was a pleasure to write! That you very much to the kind person who looked this over too [name redacted until we all non-anon]!
> 
> Damian in this story is handwaved up to whatever age the reader finds acceptable for sexual stuff to be going on.

**Bruce**  
Bruce sank down into his chair and rubbed his hand over his face. He had to stay until almost the end of Wayne Industries Christmas parties, and even trying to look like he was drinking far more than he was, meant he’d drunk too much to patrol tonight.

He turned on the screen and watched the various members of the Batfamily as they moved through Gotham. Tim was creeping across the roof of the Bowery, Cassandra was stalking a man in a fedora down an alley, Barbara was typing quickly and talking rapidly into her headset, Dick was poised on a gargoyle and Damian leapt off its neighbour, swinging down to the clock. 

Bruce watched the two of them for awhile, frowning at Damian. He’d been at the party earlier and had given Bruce his present, a set of plain, silver cufflinks. Simple, elegant and boring. Exactly the kind of thing a rich boy would give a distant father he didn’t know very well.

It was perfectly respectable and also, in a way he didn’t want to admit, incredibly disappointing. He had thought since coming back that he’d been making some progress with Damian. And also Damian clearly didn’t care much about Christmas. But…still.

He put the cufflinks box aside and turned back to the screen, before looking back at it and frowning. It just seemed slightly too big. He opened it cautiously and held it up the light, the lid was thicker than he’d expect, even with the silk padding. 

He got a scalpel and pried the padding away to reveal an obviously false back. Pulling that away revealed a small white card saying in Damian’s handwriting, _‘Flick me.’_

Very carefully, Bruce took out one of the cufflinks and saw there was a faint line around their edges and that out of the box they were slightly chunkier than he would expect.

He hesitated, this was still _Damian_ after all, but he couldn’t face the thought of telling the boy he hadn’t discovered whatever the cufflinks did. And besides he realised, his son had got him a mystery. 

So he flicked them. The cufflink instantly burst open and released a cloud of white knock out gas. Bruce couldn’t help smiling as he slid to the floor.

 **Cassandra**  
She’d come to love Christmas. The noise and the colour and the softness of it. Christmas wasn’t necessary, no one needed Christmas. People certainly didn’t need to eat so much food they couldn’t move and they didn’t need to cover their houses and cities with twinkling lights, but they did it anyway. Christmas was a beautiful indulgence and she wanted to revel in it, wrap herself up in its warmth.

She was standing in front of the Wayne Manor tree now. Not the one in the entrance hall that was covered in delicate, sparkly white string and glass icicles, but the one in the study. This one had battered wooden decorations with brightly coloured paint, baubles in red, green and yellow that she could cup in her hand and coloured lights that chased each other around the tree. They hadn’t been put on very well, Dick had got them tangled up in the tinsel and they were making a reindeer look cross-eyed.

There were steps behind her and she spun round to see Damian, who bowed his head just a tiny fraction and held out a long, flat box wrapped in plain gold paper.

“Happy Christmas.”

He said the words awkwardly, like they didn’t quite fit right in his mouth, and she smiled a little and said thank you as she took the box.

“It was very expensive,” he said and then walked away very quickly with his head up.

She turned the box round in her hands before carefully pulling the tape away from the paper. The box itself was plain black and she opened it to reveal a knife. It was expensive, the handle had to have been made for her grip, how could he have done that? The blade was perfectly balanced, and so sharp it could have sliced through her skin as easily as tinsel.

The lights slid down it, green, blue, yellow, pink and red. She very carefully put it back in the box and shut the lid firmly. It was expensive, it had been bought with care, attention and most importantly respect. But when she looked back at the tree and heard Steph and Barbara laughing, their giggles warm as the light, and she left it behind as she went to find them.

 **Tim**  
He shouldn’t really have gone hunting for snacks before Alfred’s Christmas lunch, which like all the ones before it, was bound to leave him stuffed. But the snacks were homemade by Alfred too, small sausages wrapped in bacon, cheese straws and hot sausage rolls with flaky pastry…

He’d nearly reached them when Damian appeared round the corner and snapped, “I’ve been looking for you.”

“Oh good. You’ve found me.”

Damian glared at him and thrust out his arm, he was holding a thick A4 envelope. Tim just raised his eyebrows.

“It’s for you.”

It couldn’t actually be a Christmas present and Tim didn’t move to take it. 

Damian rolled his eyes and huffed, “It’s Christmas.”

Tim still didn’t take it and Damian started to glare even harder.

“Grayson told me that we have to get each other Christmas presents.”

Tim looked at the envelope very, very warily and said, “Have to is overstating it.”

Damian, if possible, looked even more snooty. “It’s tradition. Waynes respect tradition.”

He was too curious, that was one of his problems. And it had led to so, so many of his other problems. 

He leaned forward and stopped instantly at the way Damian’s eyes lit up.

“Is it poisonous?”

“No.”

“Does it have something that’s going to bite my hand if I take it?”

“No.”

“Electrocute me?”

“No Drake! Just take it.”

Stupid curiosity. He took it. 

He ran his hands across it and pressed on where the envelope was sealed, slowing down when Damian started tapping his foot, but he didn’t feel anything dangerous. It really did seem like an ordinary envelope with some kind of brochure inside.

He opened it carefully and tipped it rather than reaching in and a plane ticket fell out. Just one he noticed, not a return. He rolled his eyes, but the destination didn’t make sense. Geneva…he wouldn’t have put it past Damian to send him to some filthy, dank war-zone, but Geneva didn’t make any sense.

Oh unless…

He pulled out the brochure, stared at the cover and held it up.

“Dignitas? Really?”

Damian looked smug. “Father said I couldn’t kill you, he didn’t say I couldn’t facilitate. And it’s supposed to be the best facility for assisted suicide in the world. I didn’t buy you a ticked to Ohio.”

“Right.” He looked at the brochure and tried to swipe Damian with it, but the other boy danced away grinning.

“You total shit Damian.”

 **Alfred**  
On the whole, the boys weren’t very good at buying him presents. Oh they tried which was, sometimes, touching. But he had never forgotten the awful year Master Bruce had tried to get him a holiday. A holiday.

So it was always a slight relief to get away from the presents and into the kitchen. This year the cooking was going to time and he smiled as he opened the sherry bottle. One small nip wouldn’t matter and it was Christmas.

“Drinking already Pennyworth?”

If his reflexes weren’t razor sharp from years as a soldier and then working for Batman and living through the adolescence of five teenage boys, he’d have dropped the sherry. As it was he managed to carefully put it down and turn to Damian saying, “I know you know the rules about being in the kitchen when dinner is being prepared.”

“Yes of course I know, but I got you this and you might need it.”

From behind his back he pulled an ornate lacquered box. It was beautiful, with geometric Arabic patterns in different types of wood on the lid. 

“Thank you Damian.”

He opened it carefully to reveal a knife. The handle was ivory and wood, wrapped in leather. The blade glinted in the light, incredibly sharp.

“It was the favourite knife of my Grandfather’s head chef. He’d served sultans, princes, kings…and he always said it was the best he ever used.”

Alfred carefully took the knife out, it did look like a good one.

“I’m honoured, but won’t he want it back?”

Just for a moment Damian looked like he might be feeling guilty and said quickly, “Ah no, probably not.”

It was a beautiful knife. And there were still a lot of vegetables to chop.

Just as he was getting out the carrots Damian said proudly, “And I’ve personally seen it decapitate three people too.”

 **Steph**  
She threw the pills back at Damian and he ducked, but that got him in range of her legs and she cut him down. He tried to twist away but she threw herself forward to pin him.

He pushed at her, but she had enough to momentum to press down on his arm almost enough to break it.

“You got me diet pills for Christmas!”

“I thought you wanted me to stop calling you Fat Girl?”

She tried to thwack his head, but that gave him enough room to twist them and roll over. She scratched him and he tried to hit her but only had room to lamely slap at her, and then she started giggling and they kept rolling, and as they turned over she realised they were right underneath the tree.

“Stop!”

Damian froze and then looked up as a bauble hit him in the head. They were inches from sending the whole tree flying and she did not want to explain how that happened to Bruce and Alfred. Ever.

“If I stand up,” Damian said slowly, “I’m going to knock it over.”

“If you don’t stand up, someone is going to find us like this.”

“That’s worse.”

She nodded and began to slide backwards. Damian only shifted a bit, but his head hit a branch and the tree began to rock. She sped up and he pushed forward and for a moment she thought they’d got free and grinned at him. But momentum had the tree now and they both realised at the same time that it was falling towards them.

They caught it before it hit the ground and managed to fix it, but, only after a load of pine needles had got stuck in her hair and they knocked some probably very expensive glass ornaments off the nearby mantlepiece.

Damian turned to her as they slunk out of the room and said, “We are never talking about this ever again.” He had a smudge of glitter on his cheek.

She nodded in agreement and then quickly whipped out her phone to get a picture of his face.

“You…”

She laughed and took off, ducking round the tree to get to the safety of the main room. Everyone was going to want a copy of the picture.

 **Dick**  
Dick wasn’t hiding. That would be cowardly. He might be taking a tiny bit longer than necessary to finish up in his room before joining the others, but word had got round about who had encouraged Damian in his present giving, and apparently not everyone was amused by their gifts.

The door opened and he looked up to see Damian standing in the doorway and holding an envelope.

“You know what you did to Tim wasn’t very nice.”

“I’m never going to be very nice to him.”

“You could have got him something generic, oil for his equipment maybe.”

Damian gave him a withering look before holding out the envelope. “This is for you.”

Well it was unlikely to be related to murder anyway, so he smiled as he took it and said, “Thank you.”

It felt like folded up papers and when he opened it up, a long legal document came out.

“What is this?”

Damian took a deep breath and said, “I got you a circus.”

“You got me a what?”

“A circus. You keep going on about how much you love circuses and whenever you’ve dragged me to one you always point out what you would have done differently.”

Dick looked at the top of the paper. There was his name and the name of a circus, scrolling down the paper showed names of employees, numbers of animals - two elephants apparently and 6 horses among others - the tents, the kit, the wagons…

“Damian this is…this is incredibly thoughtful. But I can’t run a circus, with what we do, I don’t have time.”

“I’ve thought of that.”

“You have?”

“Yes.” Damian took the paper back and pointed at one of the names on the list. “I’ve been assured this man is a competent manager. He could look after it on a day to day basis and you just own it.” He sniffed, “I assume we’ll get free tickets.”

Slightly helpless Dick nodded and took the paper back. The elephants were called Upendo and Furaha. There were pictures in the pack too, of the tent, which was stripped blue and yellow and a handful of people were posing in front of it. They looked happy.

It was completely impractical, he didn’t have time and it was a terrible idea. But Damian looked so wretchedly hopeful he just managed to get out, “Well, thank you Damian.”

He could always have a word with Bruce about covertly selling it at a later date. After he’d visited it of course.

 **Jason**  
Jason had only spent a few hours at the manor. It got too…well it got too much to be around them all, especially at Christmas. He didn’t even bother turning on the lights for a moment, just leaned his head back and pressed it against the door.

He walked towards the fridge when something moved in the corner of his eye outside the window. A hint of a shadow moving that was too big to be a bird. He kept walking, it sounding like someone might be trying the window, scratching at it maybe. Once he reached the fridge he shut his eyes and flung it open, hoping to blind the other person as he reached for his gun and ducked behind the fridge door.

“Todd don’t be an idiot it’s me.”

He opened his eyes to see Damian sliding into the room through the open window and lowered his gun.

“You couldn’t knock?”

“That would be boring.” 

Jason glared at him and reached for a beer, taking a long gulp before snapping, “And why are you here at all?”

For just a moment Damian looked almost embarrassed and said, “You left before I could give you your present.”

The idea of Damian buying him a present was so ridiculous Jason choked on his beer.

“You got me a present?”

Damian shrugged off a backpack and put it on the coffee table. Jason eyed it warily and said, “Is this similar to the presents you got Tim and Steph?”

“I got everyone else nice presents.”

Well that depended on your definition of nice Jason thought, but only Bruce’s had done any physical damage and that had mostly been because he’d hit his head on the chair when he’d collapsed and given himself a black eye. It had made Jason feel all festive and warm inside every time he’d seen it.

Opening the backpack revealed a silver briefcase, slightly cold to the touch with a red bow on the outside.

“Thanks it’s…”

“Open it idiot.”

Jason stared at the contents and managed, “What the fuck.” Because inside, nestled in ice, was a hand, cupping an eye ball.

Damian sounded slightly anxious as he said, “Can you guess who they belonged to.”

“I assume you mean whose hand it is, not who was previously collecting body parts?”

But before Damian could reply Jason spotted the tattoo around the hand’s wrist. It was a complex interlocking pattern and he only new one person with that tattoo.

“Is this Jackson Bright’s hand?”

Damian grinned, “Yes and his eye.”

Still confused Jason said, “Why have you given me Jackson Bright’s hand and eye?”

“Well I know he’s been giving you trouble and he’s been dealing on your patch to children again. So I thought, that would be a great present. Stop him causing trouble.”

“How, um, permanently did you stop him?”

Damian looked almost offended for a moment and snapped, “I didn’t kill him. Just maimed him a bit.”

Jason looked down at the body parts again and tried to work out what the hell a sensible response would be.

“I’d just noticed you seemed cross that you couldn’t put him down, and you’ve been out really long hours lately and I don’t think, don’t think the others had noticed. Or would get it, if they did.”

He looked up and Damian was almost blushing now, staring at the hand and eye rather than Jason and said quietly, “They often don’t get you I think.”

They didn’t, but he wouldn’t have expected the brat to care. Not that he was a brat now, taller than Jason and beginning to fill out in his shoulders too, he’d probably be taller than Bruce soon.

He also looked really embarrassed and angry, he tilted his head back and said defiantly to Jason. “Anyway, it was just a thought.”

Jason realised he’d screwed this up and he quickly blurted out, “Thank you. For…for the gift and the…the thought. For noticing.” 

They stood there, the coffee table and briefcase of body parts on the table between them and Jason shrugged and said, “I won’t be keeping them on the mantlepiece though, if it’s all the same to you.”

Damian smiled, very slightly and Jason edged around the table. It was actually kind of sweet, and that faint smile made his mouth go dry. His heart was racing and in this he apparently wasn’t practiced enough to keep his hands from starting to shake slightly. 

He reached out his hand very slowly, leaving enough time for Damian to back away or stop him. He didn’t although his eyes went very wide and Jason touched his cheek. His skin was soft and he trailed his fingers over his cheek bone and then down to where there was a slight hint of evening stubble coming through.

“I didn’t know that you were…noticing me much at all.”

Damian shrugged and grabbed the hand Jason was holding to his face. At first his grip was so tight Jason thought for a second he’d completely misread the whole thing and started to back away, but then Damian relaxed a bit and moved his fingers up to Jason’s palm and locked their fingers together. His voice was very quiet as he replied, “Awhile now.”

They were awkwardly holding hands and Jason stepped closer to him. Damian didn’t back up but he did swallow and the hundreds of reasons that this was a bad idea didn’t stop running through Jason’s head as he bent down and kissed him.

For another terribly awkward moment Damian didn't respond, but then he grabbed at Jason’s arms and pulled him closer. They grappled at each other, both trying to control the kiss until finally Jason let him lead and relaxed against him. Damian tangled one of his hands in Jason’s hair, the other was holding his hip so tightly he thought the fingers must be leaving bruises, and every reason it was a bad idea faded away as Damian gasped into his mouth.

He was hardly even thinking as he dropped to his knees, suddenly wanting and Damian’s hand tightened in his hair.

“Todd…you…”

“Want me to stop?” he asked as he stroked the front of Damian’s crotch, pressing hard against his cock that was starting to swell.

“No!”

“Where’s the zipper?”

There were actually a complicated series of zippers and catches that had to be opened and seriously how did any of them ever get laid, before Jason was able to pull out Damian’s cock and press his lips against the head, licking it first as Damian gasped and tightened his hands in Jason’s hair.

He teased a bit longer, himself as much as Damian, before he started to suck him properly. Taking him as deep as he could and sliding his hand round to cup Damian’s balls, doing that made Damian whine and thrust into mouth, and he had a feeling this might be the first time someone had done this for Damian, which should not be close to hot, but was, especially with the increasing frantic, bitten off noises he was making.

Jason moved his free hand back to Damian’s ass, cupping it and encouraging him to thrust. He could feel how he was swelling in his mouth, taste how he was starting to leak and then Damian tightened the hand in his hair hard, cried out and thrust in twice more with a sharp cry.

His mouth was suddenly flooded and he had to gulp quickly as Damian didn’t let him go straight away and almost seemed to be trying to pull him closer, until Jason gently pushed him back and pulled at one of the hands in his hair. 

Damian slumped to the floor and grabbed for him again, kissing him and Jason clutched at him back, sharing the slick still in his mouth and trying to rub his cock against him. He was trying not to be greedy and just take but as Damian pushed him onto his back it was impossible not to try and get some friction.

“Touch me, Damian please, touch me.”

But Damian bit his neck instead, which turned him on more and his head fell back to the floor. 

“I didn’t tease you.”

“No, I suppose not.”

That smile was back, just a hint of it, as Damian pushed himself back up and clearly trying to sound nonchalant said, “Shall we go to the bedroom?”

Jason nodded and managed to standup, rearranging himself as he did so and imagined Damian spread out on the sheets, naked, god they had to manage naked this time. And then he noticed Jackson’s creepy eye, which he supposed had been staring at them the whole through the blow job. It clearly hadn’t bothered Damian, who was moving straight to the closed bedroom door, although he wasn’t supposed to have been here before, but Jason firmly shut the lid of the briefcase before flowing him. The consequences of some presents were definitely better than the present itself.

**Extra bonus scenes!**

**Titus**

Master had got him a large extra bone. He was a good dog. He was protecting master and eating the bone. The bone had a foot on the end which was crunchy too. Master said it was from one of the bad men he’d saved Master from the other day. He was a good dog.

**Alfred the Cat**

The new bed was soft and warm. He could bury himself in it and wrap his tail around himself and not have to listen to the big, stupid dog chomping away at the bone. He liked the new bed.

**Batcow**

“Moooo.”

**THE END**


End file.
